I realize this is a matter of personal aesthetics, of course. I was just a little confused how declaring and using a variable (and avoiding weird behavior from <DATA>) was better than declaring an unused variable and getting the weird behavior.

(But don't do that, because the version with the explicit variable is obviously right, whereas the version without one forces the reader to pause and wonder whether it will work or not. So it is, I suppose, required in the sense of "required by any sane coding standards" ...)